Grado Cartridges and Stylus - Questions and Advice.

Joe Mac said:
You’re likely to kinda fall in the middle of the 46dB and 60dB gain settings. 50ish dB is probably ideal for the low output. I was a bit that way with 48dB and 60dB on my preamp too. I found that it sounded better at the lower gain and cranking the amp instead but ymmv.
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Was thinking that may happen. I’m on the same page. Plenty of room on the amp, and I use a Magni as well.
 
Joe Mac said:
You’re likely to kinda fall in the middle of the 46dB and 60dB gain settings. 50ish dB is probably ideal for the low output. I was a bit that way with 48dB and 60dB on my preamp too. I found that it sounded better at the lower gain and cranking the amp instead but ymmv.
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This is actually a really good point, I know sometimes people complain that they have to turn their volume way up, but does that really matter?? Obviously if your hitting the max point on your volume you may want to reconsider, but going from lets say 9 o'clock to 12 or 1 isn't a big deal. To @Joe Mac's point, you should do a little experimenting and not get too tied down to what the numbers should be.

For example, I ran my Hana SL at 800 ohms rather than 100 and it gave the sound so much more "air", it sounded wonderful.
 
AnthonyI said:
This is actually a really good point, I know sometimes people complain that they have to turn their volume way up, but does that really matter?? Obviously if your hitting the max point on your volume you may want to reconsider, but going from lets say 9 o'clock to 12 or 1 isn't a big deal. To @Joe Mac's point, you should do a little experimenting and not get too tied down to what the numbers should be.

For example, I ran my Hana SL at 800 ohms rather than 100 and it gave the sound so much more "air", it sounded wonderful.
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Yeah my general findings so far kind of confirm that the amplifiers I have owned are much better at gain than phono preamps and that running the phono with the more conservative gain and cranking the amp instead sounds sweeter, I felt my system sounded a little larey with MC level gain on the Opus. Equally I was still only getting to 50-60/100 on my preamp which is still well below line level which PS Audio told me is 76/100.
 
AnthonyI said:
For example, I ran my Hana SL at 800 ohms rather than 100 and it gave the sound so much more "air", it sounded wonderful.
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Experimentation helps.

The Hana SL is recommended by Excel to run at a loading >300 ohms. I was a bit worried before I got it because my Insight did not have a loading between 200 and 1000 ohms; I even contacted Ron Sutherland for his advice. I run it at 1000 ohms and love it there. I learned a bit more about cartridge loading from Hagerman Audio Labs along the way.

I reduced phono gain from 60 dB to 55 dB and cranked my preamp up a bit after more experiments. Since I have a Bryston preamp that is really clean, it was better for me to do more voltage gain there versus pushing the Insight to its top gain level. Again, YMMV with different equipment.
 
AnthonyI said:
This is actually a really good point, I know sometimes people complain that they have to turn their volume way up, but does that really matter?? Obviously if your hitting the max point on your volume you may want to reconsider, but going from lets say 9 o'clock to 12 or 1 isn't a big deal. To @Joe Mac's point, you should do a little experimenting and not get too tied down to what the numbers should be.

For example, I ran my Hana SL at 800 ohms rather than 100 and it gave the sound so much more "air", it sounded wonderful.
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Absolutely. Impedance and gain with cartridges and preamps are all fun. You can’t hurt anything at phono level!

I think you see a lot of folks shying away at turning their volume up as carryover from loudness wars. Our ears are programmed to think louder = better in virtually all contexts.
 
AnthonyI said:
This is actually a really good point, I know sometimes people complain that they have to turn their volume way up, but does that really matter?? Obviously if your hitting the max point on your volume you may want to reconsider, but going from lets say 9 o'clock to 12 or 1 isn't a big deal. To @Joe Mac's point, you should do a little experimenting and not get too tied down to what the numbers should be.

For example, I ran my Hana SL at 800 ohms rather than 100 and it gave the sound so much more "air", it sounded wonderful.
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I’ve been using 400 for the most part, though I did try 800 as well.
 
Call me crazy, but I honestly haven't been enjoying the sound from my AT cart and I am looking for a more high end Grado to put on the StudioDeck.

What were people's opinions on the wood body Platinum or Sonata? Still in the vein of the warm Grado sound?
 
folsom_lives said:
Call me crazy, but I honestly haven't been enjoying the sound from my AT cart and I am looking for a more high end Grado to put on the StudioDeck.

What were people's opinions on the wood body Platinum or Sonata? Still in the vein of the warm Grado sound?
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yep, or the Opus3 too which has a nice 275 price point
 
folsom_lives said:
Well I'm looking at my PayPal balance after selling a few records and that Platinum sits nicely in that range. I'm guessing with my current preamp, that I'm looking at the "high output" model?
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It looks like the Pho-8 has two gain settings, 40dB and 60dB. The heads around here say the Grado low output woods should be set at 50dB gain, so that's not a good match. But the high output should work well at the 40dB setting.
 
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